Learns from RIAA mistakes, noting “Going after end users is a strategy that would require ridiculous amounts of resources and probably would not accomplish a lot.”

Porn has long been one of the most widely traded types of content on P2P and file-sharing sites and thus, like the rest of the entertainment industry, it too has had to face the problem of how to effectively combat the problem.

Enter the Pak Group, which was formed back in September 2007 during a meeting of major content producers. It was “was formed for the purpose of documenting, pursuing and bringing claims in the form of demand letters and lawsuits to the front door of pirates,” but has come to the apparent realization that going after individual file-sharers is a losing proposition. I’m sure the RIAA’s nearly decade-long efforts was what ultimately convinced them.

Jason Tucker, co-founder of the anti-piracy company, recently sat down with XBIZ, a porn industry publication, and discussed how it plans to fight piracy not by going after “end users,” but rather those “companies creating locations where the exploitation of stolen works is encouraged.”

XBIZ: Some have suggested that an effective technique might be to go after individuals who are posting stolen content to tubes, sharing content via P2P and [engaging in] other end-user behaviors along those lines. Does the PAK Group intend to go this route? If so, are you at all concerned that this approach could be seen as anti-consumer, or that it might ostracize more legitimate users than it would discourage would-be pirates?

Tucker: Going after end users is a strategy that would require ridiculous amounts of resources and probably would not accomplish a lot. Again, I don’t currently see the problem with the end users as much as I do companies creating locations where the exploitation of stolen works is encouraged. We need to pick our battles, and right now it is with the locations where this is going on. Eventually we can educate surfers. There are viable business models within communities that allow users to share content. But basic rules must be adhered to, and self policing is a must. MySpace and YouTube have cleaned up their act, so it can be done.

How does it plan to do this? Well, the group’s lead attorney apparently “is a better programmer then he is an attorney” and has helped to develop “software that spiders websites, only grabbing the content we tell it to find.”

“Once it finds the content, it documents everything that a lawyer needs to prove that the thief was in fact using stolen content,” he continues. “Pretty neat, huh? Again, once I see how much is out there, I just get more and more upset, but it reaffirms my unyielding desire to annihilate large thieves and to scatter the little ones.”

With many of the “little ones” increasingly to turning to BitTorrent for file-sharing and tracker sites that are much harder to “spider,” he may just find that he does like the RIAA after all and drives illegal file-sharing even further underground.

Even if it were to be successful at taking down a site two or more always appear in its place. The demise of OiNK late last year is a perfect example, whereby Waffles.fm and What.cd immediately took its place.